Phone conferencing is a tool for connecting a plurality of parties by way of their respective phone connections so that the parties may all participate in a phone conference where the parties may speak and listen to the other parties as if they were together. Present systems allow for notification of phone conference participants of a dial-in phone number and a passcode for joining a phone conference. Phone conferences typically have an organizer or host whose account is used to distribute the invitations to the invitees to the phone conference, and whose account is charged for the cost of such a phone conference.
Present phone conferencing systems are provided by services which rely on electronic mail and browser-based invitation and hosting techniques for setting up the phone conferences. Furthermore, present systems rely on the entry of a passcode, usually a provided numerical code that is punched into a phone's keypad to generate a detectable DTMF sequence to allow access of a participant to the phone conference.
Such systems are difficult or not usable by persons who do not have their home or office computers or land line phones at their disposal, and therefore, it is difficult or impossible for mobile users to easily make arrangements for phone conferences, especially those involving other mobile users.
Existing voice and chat conferencing available today are bulky and inefficient. Typically, an individual who wishes to set up a conference must go to a conferencing application on a personal computer, obtain a dial-in number and passcode, then he or she sends email the conference participants who then dial in at the appointed time with the provisioned dial-in information.
It is therefore useful to have improved and new methods and systems for facilitating the organization, hosting, and establishment and conduct of phone conference sessions involving mobile users and hosted by mobile users.